Japanese financial services giant Nomura has announced that it plans to launch a digital asset division as part of an overall restructuring focused on digital finance.
In an announcement on March 1, Nomura Holdings revealed plans to reorganize its “Future Innovation Company” into a newly established “digital company”, effective April 1.
The announcement acknowledged that digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, securities and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are gaining traction as a new asset class.
Nomura provides broker-dealer, banking, investment, financing and other financial services to individual, institutional and government clients around the world. The company reported assets of 74 trillion yen, or about $640 billion, under management as of December 2021.
Adoption of digital asset technology
The Osaka-based firm was founded in 1925 and acquired most of Lehman Brothers Asian operations along with its European equity and investment banking units in October 2008.
The establishment of the new “Digital Company” organization will enable Nomura to strengthen cooperation in all digital finance areas that include digital assets.
Nomura President and Group CEO, Kentaro Okuda, commented:
“Digital technology is an important part of our strategic drive to expand our operations into private markets. The new digital company will lead to deeper collaboration between internal and external stakeholders, accelerate our adoption of digital technologies and enhance our customer services. will increase.”
The announcement said the firm intends to tap into the “fusion of innovations resulting from distributed ledger technology with traditional finance”, expand its private markets business, and expand its services in these focus areas. .
Specific crypto assets were not mentioned, nor was the firm likely to allow its clients to trade them.
On February 8, BeInCrypto reported that Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, was planning to issue a yen-backed stablecoin.
Strong ESG
Nomura Holdings has also created a new investment banking group to strengthen its ESG (environmental, social and governance), and sustainable technology.
On March 3, it was reported that the US Nomura Greentech division was being merged with Nomura’s global energy, infrastructure and industrial teams to form the Global Greentech Industrial and Infrastructure (GII) group.
The new group will include about 150 bankers in renewable energy, sustainable materials, agricultural technology, advanced transportation, energy information technology, water technology, environmental services and technologies and digital infrastructure.